Moe Berg's Low Self-Esteem Breakfast Tips #1 - The First In A Series

let's face facts.

1) the economy is bad

2) you love bacon

"so?" you ask with great interest, "what does the fact that the economic ground is cracking beneath my old, shredded, wonderbread bag shoes have to do with the fact that i'm down with the pig?"

"listen up, shithead," i say with off-putting contempt, "i'm getting to that. and try to take a shower once in a while. you should be ashamed of yourself."


what if i told you that you could have a satisfying, delicious, stomach-warming, artery-packing Bacon Breakfast for mere pennies? and you would only have to deal with one or two hippies at the most?

you'd tell me that you were breaking out your finest bib.

here's how it works.

1) go to whole foods before 9 am or so


yeah, i know, i know.

"moe, i can't go to whole foods! that place is very expensive! the hand picked organic peruvian albino avocados are, like, four bucks each! and don't get me started on the luxuriousness of having both an olive and a cheese bar! plus, i drank all that cough syrup. i'll never get up before noon!"

are you done?

seriously. are you done? are you finished yet? do you want bacon or do you want to complain?

ahem.

where were we?

1) go to whole foods before 9 am or so


2) enter the establishment

3) walk towards the serve yourself hot food bar

4) try not to get caught staring at the hot moms and fresh-faced co-ed cashiers

(step 4 is applicable only to men and lesbians.)

5) find the little cardboard boxes

6) find the bacon

7) put 7 or 8 strips of bacon in the box. this should be more than enough to satisfy even the most pork grease-addicted lardass


8) look for the most alluring cashier

9) have this cashier weigh the box and ring you up


10) pick your jaw up off the floor as your Grand Bacon Total is calculated at...


...less than 20 cents!

11) get in your car, take off your shoes, loosen your belt, turn up the radio, and munch that bacon as you drive to the unemployment office to apply for benefits

economical, atkins-friendly and tasty.


those are three terms we don't throw around here at the Metz very often. but i'm willing to bet you a can of soup that after you set my plan in action, you're going to get those three words tattooed somewhere between your navel and your knees.

My Joy Can Be Yours As Well...For The Meager Sum of 45 Dollars Per Inning of Baseball To Be Enjoyed

this year, los angeles dodgers' third baseman wilson betemit will make $405,000.


i will not.

this past saturday, however, i did manage to subsidize a nice chunk of mr betemit's weekly paycheck with a surprisingly large percentage of mine - thanks to my slightly regretable decision to take jb and ab to dodger stadium for their very first baseball game.


first thing's first.

the decision to take these two out to the ball game was not made lightly. over the years i've seen more than enough dumb fathers with kids who are way too young to appreciate any of what's going on but were still schlepped out to a stadium in full mini-gear to prove that daddy is a big time fan - so big time that he is willing to subject a poor, clueless kid and everyone in the stands around them to what happens when you take a two year old to something other than "sesame street live". that wasn't ever going to be me. it was only after i was completely and totally convinced that my boys a) were old enough to appreciate a real ballpark experience and b) had at least a rudimentary grasp on the game that i decided to go for it.

and they were psyched.

it was all they talked about for the week before gametime.

at least until we got there and things got rolling.

i mean, sure, i got that wide-eyed 'wow, we're really here with our dad' reaction that i hoped i would get when we saw the stadium and walked to our seats, (you know, the one billy crystal has reminisced about in every single interview he's ever given) and that was nice.

almost nice enough to make me forget the endless orgy of impulsive-demanding-of-snacks and kvetching that soon followed.

with apologies to vin scully, here's the play by play.

bottom of the 1st inning:

boys demand lunch. jb insists on hot dogs. ab has been dreaming of stadium chicken fingers for days. we leave our seats, go stand in line, drop around $35 for a full on, drinks-and-all spread and miss back-to-back cubs home runs in the process.

top of the 2nd:

jb disgusted by grill marks on his dodger dog, refuses to eat more than a few bites.


ab polishes off the fries, turns up nose at the chicken.


bottom of the 2nd:

bionic-eared and hank-kingsley-moustachioed ice cream vendor overhears ab casually mention to me that he would like a snack, immediately stops to put the hard-sell on a 5 year old. 5 year old convinces me to drop $6 on a half-gallon of cookies 'n' cream.

one spoonful in, ab decides he doesn't like the ice cream. thankfully, jb picks up some of the slack.


top of the 3rd:

jb takes it upon himself to stop the cotton candy vendor.


at $3 a serving, this will be the smallest financial outlay of the day - but with jb's interest in actually eating the fluffy pink product petering out after 3 bites, it will also ultimately have the highest cost to consumption ratio of anything else bought at the stadium that day.

bottom of the 3rd:

ab begins to bitch about being "sweaty" immediately after noticing the $5 frozen lemonade vendor lurking in the section adjacent to ours.

top of the 4th:

ab's bitching becomes annoying enough for me to offer to buy a frozen lemonade to go along with his jumbo ice water whenever the vendor reappears closer to where we are sitting.

bottom of the 4th:

vendor never reappears, ab's annoying bitching has become a full-on whiny kvetch. we leave our seats, stand in line, buy frozen lemonade.

bottom of the 5th:

return to our seats, lemonade is opened and tasted.



judgement: "too sour".

ab continues to talk about how sweaty he is. jb begins to pick up the talking points. i make a comedic and theatrical attempt to show them that they are, in fact, not the ones who are sweaty...i am. they are not convinced. ab remarks that he wants to leave.

i have had enough.

i calmly but firmly remind my sons about how excited they were to come to the game and explain that, since i have generously bought them every single thing for which they have asked, i would like them to stay with me and enjoy the game until the seventh inning stretch. they begrudgingly agree.

bottom of the 6th:


the boys' first-ever participation in a "wave" makes everything all better for a moment.


middle of the 7th:

boys are confused when everyone in the stadium rises to sing. it immediately dawns on me that while my sons can sing along with any number of classic songs in all possible genres, i have never taught them the words to 'take me out to the ball game'.

i feel like a complete piece of shit.

bottom of the 7th:

the shame and guilt forces me to take my poor, deprived children to the souvenir stand on the way out of the stadium - where they are treated to $56 worth of hats and foam fingers.


a cool breeze blows across the parking lot as we walk to our car. all is finally right in chavez ravine.

ride home:

i provide myself with 45 minutes of well-deserved peace and quiet by tossing an ether soaked rag into the back of my car.


thank you, abner doubleday. thank you for a day i will never forget.